Interesting study, but I wonder if they are barking up the wrong tree. If a larger screen matters so much, perhaps it could have something to do with differences in the density of rods & cones within the eye. Women typically see color more accurately (cones), men typically have better brightness perception / night vision (rods) but are more likely to be color blind.
With which provider? I have had the same number on about 10 different phones for over 10 years with AT&T, while changing services from analog cellular to TDMA to GSM.
Each new phone has only required a year extension (from upgrade date) to get the subsidized price, regardless of how long I had the previous phone.
Yep, the system in Seattle is great! They also reports wrecks within minutes after they happen, and show events (sports, etc) that will muck things up.
It is even more useful when you can access it on the go. If you have a WAP cell, point at: http://manoli.net/traffic/ Transcodes the traffic data into text -- select a freeway & direction, get average MPH at each overpass / exit where it isn't wide open.
Sure it is, and I agree 100% -- but when they try to pull this kind of crap with the numbers, they are losing even *more* credibility among the tech-savvy crowd (if that's possible).
If they keep this stuff up, eventually everything they do will be dismissed as wrong -- no one will even bother to look for the merits.
So now if I gnutella on a T3 am I suddenly stealing 28x the music because it's "really fast"?!
Just another sign of these idiots' attempts to ignore the progress of technology out of sheer stupidity and too much laziness to develop new business models that embrace it.
Actually, my comment was that IE *doesn't* do CSS right, and an implication that Mozilla does it better. Still, it doesn't matter much when people must design for the IE masses.
Thank god they are both much closer than in the hell days of IE vs. NS4.
Sad but true. While Mozilla has made amazing progress, especially in the last year, it still doesn't come close to IE.
I know, I know, it starts fast because MS ties it so tightly to Windows, it doesn't really do CSS right, it is a security nightmare, etc, etc.. but the bottom line is, considered as a TOOL, IE 6 is the best there is. I rarely have fewer than 10 browser windows open or minimized, 99.99% of pages always render right (because designers have to test with it), and it is extremely stable -- crashes perhaps once-twice a month on average.
Even though it is still behind, I hope like anyone that Mozilla's rapid improvement continues (with projects like this) and it becomes a superior solution.
The thing that still scares me is 'why?' -- IE is solid enough that Mozilla needs to do something more than just reach parity to get any real foothold, at least on Windoze. Cm'mon, AOL, switch!
Umm, no. The audio path quality won't come close to even low-end stereo components. Further, you say: "Hook the audio out to the big speakers" -- that's going to take an amplifier..
Worst of all, this "gadget" uses MPEG-1, 320x240 resolution -- fine quality for a small window, but nothing you are going to want to watch on a TV larger than 13".
What would be really interesting is a study of *which* CD's are bought. I use gnutella, etc. to try music, and if I end up getting more than a couple songs from a CD, I'll buy it. When it's a one hit wonder, and the rest of the CD sucks, I won't.
IMHO People would be all over a pay-per-song high-quality download system, but the Music Co's don't like that because then they don't sell the gazillions of albums at $13+ a pop where there are only one or two songs worth a damn on it.
This card does have hardware MPEG-2 encoding (an NEC IC), unlike the other two you mention. Therefore, the CPU load is very low, ~5 on a 1ghz Athlon -- AFAIK the other two both use LSI's software encoder, the fastest software encoder available but still painful at around 60% CPU on the same box.
There is no hardware decoder, so CPU use is dependent on your video card's acceleration features (iDCT, Motion Compensation) -- expect about the same overhead as a software DVD player.
It doesn't store the data in standard MPEG format, and the conversion tool is very slow.
If you could get raw MPEG out of it and there were Linux drivers, it would kick ass. The effort to make Linux drivers for it isn't very mature: http://www.760mp.com/videoblaster/
True, but.. Given the poor acceptance of the "xyz Pad" keyboardless laptops to date, I have to give ViewSonic some credit for taking a creative approach, even if it is merely marketing spin.
This article is just an annoying reminder of how the media spins and distorts issues. Why don't they have the courage to run this article with a little different slant and a headline such as "Another child injured by parental neglect -- lazy parents allow son to play video games seven hours daily"?
How soon can we expect the multi-million dollar lawsuit on this one?
I am no fan of M$, but it isn't accurate to say they haven't tried. Their biggest problem is that, despite their efforts, hundreds of millions of lines of code isn't fast to repair -- especially not with 10,000 or so programmers who, on a curve, are merely average.
If Linux (etc) were as widely used *by inexperienced* people as Windows, it would face just as many problems.. but at least the code would be there for patches to come out. Then again, how would Mr. Schmoe get the it without some kind of auto-update?
I fear that it will be easier for Microsoft to address most security issues (as they finally have wrt stability) than for Linux, etc. to become fairly user friendly.
An interesting argument, though I tend to disagree. People are screaming and crying at the $399 who can't afford it. I read that Apple has sold 120k of them and can't keep stores stocked, so I don't think price is a barrier yet.
This argument has strange similarities to the Linux v. Windows battle. Yes, you can get one (iPod), yes you can make it work on this system, no it isn't user friendly, no it isn't easy for non-technical people to do -- and most importantly -- 95% of the time, the CompUSA, Circuit City, etc. sales guy is going to say "Mac or PC", and steer you away from the iPod without native PC support.
Then again, perhaps the market for HD MP3 players is mostly limited to those who would have the technical savvy to figure out how to make it work.. or perhaps Apple jumps in with a PC version for $429 that has Windows software and a USB to Firewire adapter, and kills you anyway:)
I said "tend" to disagree because I am not certain. Interesting to ponder, anyway.
Nonsense. A USB -> IDE interface chip and a mini PCB mounted USB port would cost like $10 in volume. iPod is $399 and the vast majority of the cost is in the 1.8" drive. As ultraportable laptops, PDAs, etc. start using 1.8", capacity will go up and cost will come down. In a few years 1.8" drives will probably be as common as 2.5" are today.
Even if it cost, say, $449, early adopters will spend it, justifying the R&D because in a year or so it's a volume product at $249 and they are selling a new, smaller, 20 gig version back to the same early adopters for $449.
I am not a big Apple fan, but the iPod is FAR from lame!
Besides Firewire, it has 32 meg of ram, more than any other HD based player -- more buffering, less HD access. It uses the memory to store the file database as well, so there is no wait for the hard drive to spin up to navigate through files/folders.
The 1.8" HD allows it to be much smaller & lighter -- about half the weight and size of the next-smallest HD based player. 5 gig is the largest 1.8" drive available right now AFAIK, but that will change soon, I am sure.
The only way to get a smaller/lighter fairly large capacity player is to use the 1GB Microdrive + a CF2 compatible memory player (with questionable battery life).
Instead of these oversized behemoths, why won't someone else use the 1.8" drive and make a player that is Win/Mac compatible (natively) that has Firewire AND USB?!
Yes, I am sure they are, and I for one don't mind a bit. If using names like 'XP' and speeds like "2000+" is what it takes to stay competitive in the eyes of the general public, more power to 'em. Bullet points for OEM's, I say.
Meanwhile, I will ignore it and happily keep using an awesome 1.4ghz chip that smokes Intel chips costing twice as much.
We must move immediately to protect our children from the perils of falling coconuts! I hereby propose a law requiring saftey fencing at least ten feet larger in diameter of any tree bearing coconuts or similar fruits. Any owner of such a tree will blah, blah, blah...
</sarcasm>
Ok, if he can patent the wheel, I'm going to patent the use of "<sarcasm/>" notation to prevent the/. average of 3 ACs who post responses that clearly indicate no capability to pick up on it whatsoever.
This is an eloquent and insightful response. I agree with your first point, and likewise believe that draconian measures are very unlikely. Taking steps to make people feel safe is an important part of freedom, however, and a key difference between our society and that of the Gaza strip.
I must respectfully disagree with the second point. I am personally agnostic and would likely be atheist were it not for the incredibly deep-rooted faith in some people I have known. Whether the source is brainwashing or the unknown, there are fanatics with this strength of belief that tells them the American way of life is evil. I have little faith that diplomatic means can change these beliefs and know no answer other than eliminating their ability to carry out these attacks.
For Americans (and truly all free nations), this has shaken our country to the very core and IMHO brings into question the ability to live our lives with the freedom we've always enjoyed.
I believe retailation in the highest order is needed, but with religious zealots willing to carry out kamakazi attacks, I fear there will be two more for every one we kill.
Ok, some enterprising and ethical hacker out there needs to make a new version of Code Red (Version -1?) that exploits the hole, puts a message somewhere obvious with a link to a web site for more info, disables the hole and runs for a few days spreading around like the other variants, then then disables itself.
With M$'s focus on the 2k/XP kernel, is this just a red herring to attract good press? Isn't CE going to be replaced by XP Embedded or whatever they decide to call it, so they have a common kernel across all their platforms?
Slashdot Mirror
Interesting study, but I wonder if they are barking up the wrong tree. If a larger screen matters so much, perhaps it could have something to do with differences in the density of rods & cones within the eye. Women typically see color more accurately (cones), men typically have better brightness perception / night vision (rods) but are more likely to be color blind.
With which provider? I have had the same number on about 10 different phones for over 10 years with AT&T, while changing services from analog cellular to TDMA to GSM.
Each new phone has only required a year extension (from upgrade date) to get the subsidized price, regardless of how long I had the previous phone.
Yep, the system in Seattle is great! They also reports wrecks within minutes after they happen, and show events (sports, etc) that will muck things up.
It is even more useful when you can access it on the go. If you have a WAP cell, point at:
http://manoli.net/traffic/
Transcodes the traffic data into text -- select a freeway & direction, get average MPH at each overpass / exit where it isn't wide open.
BTW, not my site, found it googling.
Sure it is, and I agree 100% -- but when they try to pull this kind of crap with the numbers, they are losing even *more* credibility among the tech-savvy crowd (if that's possible).
If they keep this stuff up, eventually everything they do will be dismissed as wrong -- no one will even bother to look for the merits.
So now if I gnutella on a T3 am I suddenly stealing 28x the music because it's "really fast"?!
Just another sign of these idiots' attempts to ignore the progress of technology out of sheer stupidity and too much laziness to develop new business models that embrace it.
Actually, my comment was that IE *doesn't* do CSS right, and an implication that Mozilla does it better. Still, it doesn't matter much when people must design for the IE masses.
Thank god they are both much closer than in the hell days of IE vs. NS4.
Sad but true. While Mozilla has made amazing progress, especially in the last year, it still doesn't come close to IE.
I know, I know, it starts fast because MS ties it so tightly to Windows, it doesn't really do CSS right, it is a security nightmare, etc, etc.. but the bottom line is, considered as a TOOL, IE 6 is the best there is. I rarely have fewer than 10 browser windows open or minimized, 99.99% of pages always render right (because designers have to test with it), and it is extremely stable -- crashes perhaps once-twice a month on average.
Even though it is still behind, I hope like anyone that Mozilla's rapid improvement continues (with projects like this) and it becomes a superior solution.
The thing that still scares me is 'why?' -- IE is solid enough that Mozilla needs to do something more than just reach parity to get any real foothold, at least on Windoze. Cm'mon, AOL, switch!
Video takes just a *little* more than 1MB/minute!
For decent quality MPEG2, SD (Standard Definition) is ~4 Mb/s
ATSC 1080i HD is 19.4 Mb/s
So, around 25 MB/Minute for SD and 145 MB/Minute for HD.
Sure, MPEG4 (or MPEG7 in the future) will help some, but still -- ~700 hours of SD or ~115 hours of HD.. suddenly doesn't seem like so much.
Goes to show why we'll need this kind of storage in the future.
Umm, no. The audio path quality won't come close to even low-end stereo components. Further, you say: "Hook the audio out to the big speakers" -- that's going to take an amplifier..
Worst of all, this "gadget" uses MPEG-1, 320x240 resolution -- fine quality for a small window, but nothing you are going to want to watch on a TV larger than 13".
---
Don't mess with Texas!
What would be really interesting is a study of *which* CD's are bought. I use gnutella, etc. to try music, and if I end up getting more than a couple songs from a CD, I'll buy it. When it's a one hit wonder, and the rest of the CD sucks, I won't.
IMHO People would be all over a pay-per-song high-quality download system, but the Music Co's don't like that because then they don't sell the gazillions of albums at $13+ a pop where there are only one or two songs worth a damn on it.
Finally, a smart post in this discussion. Mod it up.
This card does have hardware MPEG-2 encoding (an NEC IC), unlike the other two you mention. Therefore, the CPU load is very low, ~5 on a 1ghz Athlon -- AFAIK the other two both use LSI's software encoder, the fastest software encoder available but still painful at around 60% CPU on the same box.
There is no hardware decoder, so CPU use is dependent on your video card's acceleration features (iDCT, Motion Compensation) -- expect about the same overhead as a software DVD player.
It doesn't store the data in standard MPEG format, and the conversion tool is very slow.
If you could get raw MPEG out of it and there were Linux drivers, it would kick ass. The effort to make Linux drivers for it isn't very mature:
http://www.760mp.com/videoblaster/
True, but.. Given the poor acceptance of the "xyz Pad" keyboardless laptops to date, I have to give ViewSonic some credit for taking a creative approach, even if it is merely marketing spin.
This article is just an annoying reminder of how the media spins and distorts issues. Why don't they have the courage to run this article with a little different slant and a headline such as "Another child injured by parental neglect -- lazy parents allow son to play video games seven hours daily"?
How soon can we expect the multi-million dollar lawsuit on this one?
I am no fan of M$, but it isn't accurate to say they haven't tried. Their biggest problem is that, despite their efforts, hundreds of millions of lines of code isn't fast to repair -- especially not with 10,000 or so programmers who, on a curve, are merely average.
If Linux (etc) were as widely used *by inexperienced* people as Windows, it would face just as many problems.. but at least the code would be there for patches to come out. Then again, how would Mr. Schmoe get the it without some kind of auto-update?
I fear that it will be easier for Microsoft to address most security issues (as they finally have wrt stability) than for Linux, etc. to become fairly user friendly.
An interesting argument, though I tend to disagree. People are screaming and crying at the $399 who can't afford it. I read that Apple has sold 120k of them and can't keep stores stocked, so I don't think price is a barrier yet.
:)
This argument has strange similarities to the Linux v. Windows battle. Yes, you can get one (iPod), yes you can make it work on this system, no it isn't user friendly, no it isn't easy for non-technical people to do -- and most importantly -- 95% of the time, the CompUSA, Circuit City, etc. sales guy is going to say "Mac or PC", and steer you away from the iPod without native PC support.
Then again, perhaps the market for HD MP3 players is mostly limited to those who would have the technical savvy to figure out how to make it work.. or perhaps Apple jumps in with a PC version for $429 that has Windows software and a USB to Firewire adapter, and kills you anyway
I said "tend" to disagree because I am not certain. Interesting to ponder, anyway.
Nonsense. A USB -> IDE interface chip and a mini PCB mounted USB port would cost like $10 in volume. iPod is $399 and the vast majority of the cost is in the 1.8" drive. As ultraportable laptops, PDAs, etc. start using 1.8", capacity will go up and cost will come down. In a few years 1.8" drives will probably be as common as 2.5" are today.
Even if it cost, say, $449, early adopters will spend it, justifying the R&D because in a year or so it's a volume product at $249 and they are selling a new, smaller, 20 gig version back to the same early adopters for $449.
I am not a big Apple fan, but the iPod is FAR from lame!
Besides Firewire, it has 32 meg of ram, more than any other HD based player -- more buffering, less HD access. It uses the memory to store the file database as well, so there is no wait for the hard drive to spin up to navigate through files/folders.
The 1.8" HD allows it to be much smaller & lighter -- about half the weight and size of the next-smallest HD based player. 5 gig is the largest 1.8" drive available right now AFAIK, but that will change soon, I am sure.
The only way to get a smaller/lighter fairly large capacity player is to use the 1GB Microdrive + a CF2 compatible memory player (with questionable battery life).
Instead of these oversized behemoths, why won't someone else use the 1.8" drive and make a player that is Win/Mac compatible (natively) that has Firewire AND USB?!
/comment
Yes, I am sure they are, and I for one don't mind a bit. If using names like 'XP' and speeds like "2000+" is what it takes to stay competitive in the eyes of the general public, more power to 'em. Bullet points for OEM's, I say.
Meanwhile, I will ignore it and happily keep using an awesome 1.4ghz chip that smokes Intel chips costing twice as much.
... when are games going to look this good? What year do I set on the time machine to pick up a Geforce 9 TiMXSe 69000 Pro Ultra Crazy?
Even better, think of the applications for user-controlled pr0n =)
We must move immediately to protect our children from the perils of falling coconuts! I hereby propose a law requiring saftey fencing at least ten feet larger in diameter of any tree bearing coconuts or similar fruits. Any owner of such a tree will blah, blah, blah...
</sarcasm>
Ok, if he can patent the wheel, I'm going to patent the use of "<sarcasm/>" notation to prevent the
This is an eloquent and insightful response. I agree with your first point, and likewise believe that draconian measures are very unlikely. Taking steps to make people feel safe is an important part of freedom, however, and a key difference between our society and that of the Gaza strip.
I must respectfully disagree with the second point. I am personally agnostic and would likely be atheist were it not for the incredibly deep-rooted faith in some people I have known. Whether the source is brainwashing or the unknown, there are fanatics with this strength of belief that tells them the American way of life is evil. I have little faith that diplomatic means can change these beliefs and know no answer other than eliminating their ability to carry out these attacks.
For Americans (and truly all free nations), this has shaken our country to the very core and IMHO brings into question the ability to live our lives with the freedom we've always enjoyed.
I believe retailation in the highest order is needed, but with religious zealots willing to carry out kamakazi attacks, I fear there will be two more for every one we kill.
How do we preserve / return to our way of life?
Ok, some enterprising and ethical hacker out there needs to make a new version of Code Red (Version -1?) that exploits the hole, puts a message somewhere obvious with a link to a web site for more info, disables the hole and runs for a few days spreading around like the other variants, then then disables itself.
Wouldn't that make a nice dent?
With M$'s focus on the 2k/XP kernel, is this just a red herring to attract good press? Isn't CE going to be replaced by XP Embedded or whatever they decide to call it, so they have a common kernel across all their platforms?